One of Patrick's 23 revolutionary autostrads in operation at the Brisbane terminal.

Australia's stevedoring industry is attracting worldwide attention due to the success of its Brisbane automated straddle carriers (autostrad) operation which was designed and built using homegrown technology developed by Patrick Corporation and the University of Sydney.
"Australia has never really been prominent on the world stevedoring stage but the Brisbane autostrad terminal in just 18 months of operation has changed all that and we are now recognised as leading players in terms of technology and innovation," says Brisbane terminals manager Matt Hollamby.

The system is attracting considerable interest, with several overseas stevedoring companies visiting Australia to assess its applicability for their own operations. The free-ranging nature of the technology, which makes it eminently flexible and deployable, together with its safe and cost-effective mode of delivery make it a serious contender for terminals considering automation.

No other stevedoring operation in the world uses free-ranging automated straddle carriers and the Brisbane terminal now has 23 autostrads in operation, currently achieving 21 moves per hour. A 'move' is defined as the ship-to-shore cycle of a gantry crane to discharge or load a container.

Six months ago, the terminal was operating at 16 to 18 moves per hour.

"We're close to achieving our target of 25 moves per hour, proposed at the initial inception of the project," reports Hollamby, adding that this benchmark should be reached by early 2008.

He tells Forkliftaction.com News that the company is focused on refining the system and is looking at issues of traffic management in order to target maximum productivity.

"The proposed 25 moves is by no means the final target. We're committed to constant improvement."